A surgeon was suspended after quipping ‘Blimey, you must be a bit of a goer’ when a colleague told him she had six children.
Stephen Krikler, 68, lost his job as chief of surgery at an NHS hospital after being found guilty of serious professional misconduct and suspended from the medical register for five months.
During a group discussion, the father-of-two noticed the woman was not wearing tights and told her: ‘You’ve got your legs out… that reminds me of a T-shirt I once owned. It said, “nice legs, what time do they open?”
When she told him she had six children, he said: ‘Don’t you have a TV? You need to get a new hobby.’
The woman complained to Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in Northamptonshire, where Krikler worked.
The General Medical Council said the incidents, between September 2019 and September 2021, ‘constituted sexual harassment’.
Krikler, who has since retired, apologised and claimed he used humour to ‘flatten the hierarchy’.
He was suspended but was allowed to return to practise after a review hearing.